On Tuesday, the Baseball Writers' Association of America named the Toronto Blue Jays' Roy Halladay the winner of the 2003 American League Cy Young Award. Halladay finished the season with a 22-7 record on a 204:32 K:BB with 253 H and 26 HR allowed in 266 IP for a 3.25 ERA. He recorded 24 innings and faced 87 batters more than any other pitcher, yet he still ranked second in the league in WHIP, OOBP, and ground-fly ratio. The 26-year-old right-hander also pitched 9 complete games, two of which were shutouts.

Only two writers didn't place Halladay first on their ballots, and those two, both affiliated with Chicago papers, still ranked Halladay 2nd while giving their first place votes to RHP Esteban Loaiza, our choice for the award this year. Loaiza finished a distant second in the balloting. Although RHP Pedro Martinez ranked third in the voting, he earned only slightly more support than RHP Tim Hudson and LHP Jaime Moyer, who respectively came in fourth and fifth. Free agent LHP Andy Pettitte won a second place and a third place vote, while Keith Foulke and Johan Santana each received a single third place vote.

In determining our unofficial ballot for the AL Cy Young, we employed the same process we utilized in selecting Rotohelp's winner for other MLB awards. We first created a preliminary ranking of the pitchers with Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). Then we evaluated the overall performance of the top AL pitchers in light of VORP and Support-Neutral Wins before finally giving minor consideration to traditional pitching statistics.

While we ultimately settled on Loaiza as our choice when figuring our ballots for the Internet Baseball Awards, we felt Loaiza, Hudson, Halladay, and Martinez could be placed in almost any order without much controversy. Halladay's winning streak and numerous complete games obviously gave him the edge in the official voting, but we favored Loaiza's slightly better marks in VORP, SNWAR, and ERA. Hudson also held a small edge on Halladay in those categories. Pedro fell behind on our list and many others because he fell significantly short of the innings accumulated by his competitors, although his skills remained beyond reproach. If not for his season-ending injury, LHP Mark Mulder, our fifth choice, likely would have made the voting significantly closer, however he failed to receive any support from the writers.

Born Harry Leroy Halladay in Denver, Colorado, the 6'6", 225 lb. Toronto ace finally validated the organization's long-term investment in his development. The Blue Jays drafted Halladay out of high school with the 17th overall pick in the first round of the 1995 draft. After spending less than three seasons in the minors, Halladay debuted in the majors as the Jays' starter in Tampa Bay on September 20, 1998.

Though he clearly could have benefited from additional minor league experience, Halladay pitched adequately in 1999. However, he fell apart in 2000, leading the Blue Jays to send him back to the low levels of the minors in 2001 in order to reconstruct his mechanics, refine his skills, and regain his confidence. The experiment produced immediate positive results, and before the end of that year, he returned to the majors, pitching better than ever. He built upon that improvement in 2002 and hasn't slipped since. I'm surprised his success hasn't led more clubs to attempt mimicking the development method with underachieving pitching prospects.

While Halladay possesses excellent skills, his efficient effectiveness played a primary role in his success. Eighty-two major league pitchers compiled enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Only two starters, Halladay and RHP Greg Maddux, averaged less than 14 pitches per inning, and Halladay needed nearly a half pitch less per inning than Mulder, the next most efficient pitcher this year.

Only RHP Bartolo Colon and Mulder equaled Halladay's 9 complete games this year, five more than any other pitcher. In these games, Halladay averaged less than 12 pitches per inning. He only exceeded 120 pitches in a start once, his last appearance of the year, when Toronto wanted to allow him to complete a ninth start.

Of course, while all these statistics appear impressive, Halladay earned the attention of voters during an eighteen-start stretch in which he won every decision. After compiling an 0-2 record on a 4.89 ERA during March and April, he beat Texas on May Day and then won fourteen of his next seventeen starts before losing on August 1st in Anaheim.

During his streak, Halladay never pitched less than 6 innings and finished the seventh inning in all but two starts. He compiled a stunning 98:14 K:BB in those 135.2 IP, and not only did he never walk more than three batters in a game, he limited the opposition to zero or one walk in fourteen of those starts. While his relative dominance over these three months was stunning, perhaps the most impressive statistic is that he allowed two runs or less in 12 starts, a dozen games that Toronto completed with an 11-1 record.

Halladay only failed to complete six full innings in two starts all season as he demonstrated superb all-around pitching skill while Toronto churned the pitching staff around him. Consequently, while we see good arguments for Loaiza, Pedro, and Hudson, Halladay's remarkable consistency and overall effectiveness make him a worthy choice for the 2003 AL Cy Young award.